Empress Elisabeth of Austria

Empress Elisabeth "Sissi" of Austria (24 December 1837-10 September 1898) was Empress consort of Austria and Queen consort of Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, and Croatia from 24 April 1854 to 10 September 1898 as the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. She was assassinated by the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni in 1898.

Biography
Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie von Wittelsbach was born in Munich, Bavaria on 24 December 1837, the daughter of Duke Maximilian Joseph in Bavaria. She came from a junior branch of the House of Wittelsbach, and she was married to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria at the age of 16. Having received a relaxed and informal upbringing, she was unsuited for court life, and her health suffered under the strain of her standing at court. Elisabeth often stayed in Hungary to live in its relaxed environment, forming a unique bond with the country which facilitated the creation of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867. The death of her son Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria and his mistress in a murder-suicide in 1889 took a great toll on Elisabeth, who began to travel widely and abandon her court duties. In 1890, she had a palace built at Corfu in Greece, and she became obsessed with maintaining her youthful figure and beauty. In 1898, while walking with a lady-in-waiting along the promenade of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, she was stabbed by the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni, who used a 4-inch needle file to attack her. She died of her wounds shortly after, and her death was widely mourned.